With You And Free Wi-Fi
by Louciferish
Summary: Implied Cougar/Jensen - Cougar ambiguously survived the comics events and has been existing without the remaining Losers. No one knows where he lives. No one even knows he's alive. But then the postcards start coming.


It started with a postcard that arrived along with spring from somewhere in the tropics: a generic tourist photo of a beach at sunset with a hammock strung up between shadowed palm trees in the foreground, and over that, in bold script, "Wish you were here!" The card was addressed to no one, had no return address or even a description with the location of the beach. It could have simply been a mistake, or a message to a previous resident. No one knew he was here. No one was even supposed to know he was alive.

Still, something about the postcard made Cougar hesitate when he pulled it out from among bills and advertisements, and after throwing the rest of the mail in the trash or onto the card table, he pinned the picture to the wall above his bed with a nail he found in the back of a kitchen drawer. It was the only thing in the room with any color to it.

Cougar liked living in El Salvador. It was busy in a whole new way, nothing like how Miami was busy, or even like Bolivia was busy. El Salvador was bustling, dense, hot, and made it so easy for one quiet, alert man to disappear.

That was what Cougar had wanted, after the bomb. He had just wanted to fade out.

The next postcard didn't arrive for months. It was bright orange, and said "Greetings from New York City!" There was nothing on it but his address. He pinned it up beside the other card, buttoned his shirt all the way up despite the summer sweltering outside, pulled his hair back, and left to walk to the factory. He didn't bother with locking his door.

The third card came in September, and it came in a pristine white envelope. There was a postmark - Chicago - but no return address. There was his own address as usual, and above that a capitol letter C, and nothing more by way of a name.

He slit the envelope open down the side with the knife from his bedside, and tilted it so the card slid out on its own. There were no pictures of the city this time, just a magenta-hued card with a generic typeface, but Cougar had to try twice to get his fingers to catch on the two sides of it, open it up to the blank white space inside.

He pinned it with the others. It said "With You and Free Wi-Fi, I Can Do Anything".

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he knew.

He barely had time to check his mail in December. The factory promoted him. There was more work than usual near the holidays, and his coworkers all knew that he lived alone, and when he occasionally spoke, he never mentioned anyone or joined in discussing plans and celebrations. People without families could work more in the busy season, make more money, and make more allies by taking on unpopular shifts.

It was Christmas day itself before he dug through the small mountain of flyers and bills and pulled out the Christmas card.

It was almost aggressively innocuous: a wood cabin in the snow like something from a Thomas Kinkade painting he'd seen many times in American malls. The cabin windows were lit, and a decorated tree was visible through one. A mug rested on the windowsill of another. Smoke rose from the chimney. Although he wasn't expecting it, this card had a message in it- a "Happy Holidays" factory printed in red ink. The back of the card said the painting was called "Home for the Holidays".

The valentine that came two months later was actually addressed to "The Hat", and Cougar couldn't help but duck his head and smile. The original hat was long lost to the sea, but he'd felt naked without it, especially trying to pass unnoticed in a new city. A suitable replacement had been found at the market within the first week after landing in El Salvador - one of a few spare parts of his old life that he couldn't quite let go.

The envelope this time was about twice the size of the last two, and when he slit it open a stream of glitter rained down. The card stuck inside, and he had to pull it out. The monstrosity was homemade from red construction paper and lacy white backing. The letters for "Be Mine" had been cut in various sizes from magazines like a ransom note, and unsurprisingly the whole thing was drowned in red and silver glitter.

Cougar carried it gently outside and then shook it ten times, firmly, to dislodge any more loose glitter before pinning it above his bed. He still woke up with glitter stuck to his skin and buried in his stiff sheets on occasion. He wondered if Jensen had gotten his niece to help make the card.

One day after that, he walked into his apartment and realized that it was beginning to look ridiculous. For over a year he'd been living here but had added nothing personal, nothing of worth. His bed was a twin mattress on the floor with cheap white sheets. He had one folding chair, a collapsible card table, a stack of newspapers next to his bed that he hid the knife in. His kitchen consisted of one pot and a hotplate that he sat out on the table when he needed it, and he washed his mismatched dishes in the bathroom sink or the shower.

The cards on the wall were glaring in contrast, the first one beginning to fade out from a year of catching sunlight from his one grimy window. He stood in the doorway, processing this, then limped to the closet. Ignoring the long case in the back corner, he stripped out of his button-down and slipped on a soft t-shirt. He pulled his hair down. Then he opened the small safe under the case, carefully counted out a few crisp bills, tucked them into his pocket, and left.

He locked the door.

When he woke up the next morning, it was in a real bed with a wooden table next to it, and a curtain blocking the sunlight. He'd slept a whole half hour more than usual.

On Cinco de Mayo, there was a bouquet of dahlias on his doorstep when he finally limped home from the factory, fiery yellows and reds, some blacks, and a devil star right in the center. There was no card, and Cougar shook his head as he carried the flowers in, because Jensen could never remember that the day wasn't actually a major holiday in Mexico, but it was a thoughtful attempt.

It was almost exactly a month later that he woke to a pounding on his door. No one had ever come to visit him, and he hadn't seen more than a glimpse of his landlord since the day he'd paid the first rent. He pulled his jeans on slowly. "Espera un minuto," he called toward the door, pulling his hair back again. Jensen wasn't normally patient, and Cougar was surprised it had taken this long. A few more minutes would not hurt.

His foot hurt like it always did in the morning, so getting to the door took longer than he wanted. He slid back the chain, turned the deadbolt, disabled the alarm quickly, and then cracked the door just enough to peer out.

Pooch did not look happy to see him.


End file.
